The International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) Print Fair returns this spring to the Park Avenue Armory in New York from March 27–30, bringing together more than 70 international galleries and publishers to showcase fine art prints ranging from Old Masters to the ultra-contemporary.
Julie Mehretu: This Manifestation of Historical Restlessness (From Robin’s Intimacy), 2022, etching and aquatint. Courtesy Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl.
Organized annually by the IFPDA, the fair is the longest-running and largest art fair dedicated to prints and editions, and this year welcomes exhibitors from across the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa with an exciting new selection of works.
This year the fair continues its practice of engaging artists actively involved in printmaking to create site-specific installations for the fair. In the past, the fair has commissioned installations by Derrick Adams, LaToya Hobbs, Yashua Klos, and Swoon. For the 2025 Print Fair, Mickalene Thomas presents l’espace entre les deux (2025), two rooms that reflect the artist’s longtime interests in interiors and the art of printmaking, pushing the conceptual boundaries of both practices. The project was commissioned by the IFPDA and organized by Sharon Coplan, with production assistance by Two Palms and major support provided by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.
Althea Murphy-Price: Seeing Through, 2024, screenprint. Courtesy Black Women of Print.
In l’espace entre les deux, Thomas, with assistance from Two Palms Press, has created paper-pulp sculptures, collages, cloth-like paper inspired by traditional Korean Joomchi, silkscreens, and three-dimensional cast paper works that evoke the feeling of entering one of Thomas’s iconic living rooms. Plants, lamps, carpeting, books, and furniture made of paper in many forms inhabit all planes of the space, but the artwork goes beyond mere trompe l’oeil illusions to suggest a third approach, a space between strict duplication of real life and static acknowledgement of the artifice at play.
“Speaking with Thomas during a studio visit at Two Palms, she said, “In art, we are often looking and draw inspiration from what is already being accomplished in nature. Trees, the origin of paper, exists in three-dimensions—so why can’t the creations we make out of paper mimic or replicate that same depth and dimensionality?”
Rembrandt: Christ Preaching, the Petite Tombe, 1657, etching and drypoint. Courtesy Hill-Stone, Inc, New York.
While Thomas is famous for her depictions of the Black female form, her interiors are often unpeopled. Nevertheless, the sense of powerful, sensual ease that permeates her portraiture is present within these rooms, with the choice of décor and arrangement of objects suggesting not a single narrative but many layers of narrative possibility. We may not know the inhabitants of the space, but something of their sensibility is transmitted all the same.
“I am constantly contemplating ways to juxtapose different kinds of materiality,” Thomas said. “I’m fascinated by the possibilities of printmaking, how can I push beyond its traditional boundaries and explore new creative parameters.”
Louis Fratino: The Longest Day of the Year, 2022, etching with aquatint. Courtesy Burnet Editions, New York.
In l’espace entre les deux, Thomas’s playful, investigatory approach to material results in something akin to a living collage, which creates a new conversation with the selection of framed collages displayed within the space. She turns what others might see as a constraint—working primarily in paper—into a world of opportunity.
Mickalene Thomas will be speaking on Saturday, March 29th at the IFPDA Print Fair. The Fair takes place March 27-30 at the Park Avenue Armory. Tickets are available here.
About the writer: Angela Flournoy is an American writer. Her debut novel The Turner House won the First Novelist Award and was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction, shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and named a New York Times Notable Book of 2015.